Chronicles: From Ineptitude to Absurdity

And then there are the stories you read that go beyond our usual category of mere ineptitude. Such as the Tabernacle Baptist Church in St. Louis that wants to fight gun violence by holding . . . a toy gun buyback. Just a hunch here: I’ll bet they don’t sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” in that congregation.

The New York Times announced quietly on Friday afternoon at 5 pm (let’s see. . . why that late time on a Friday I wonder?) to announce that it was shutting down its Green blog. They had already disbanded its environment desk back in early January, and in this decision, like the previous one, they channeled Spinal Tap’s Ian Faith in declaring that this didn’t mean a lessening commitment to the topic—oh, no, we’re just becoming more selective. I mean, see if this doesn’t sound as lame as the satirical Mr. Faith:

This change will allow us to direct production resources to other online projects. But we will forge ahead with our aggressive reporting on environmental and energy topics, including climate change, land use, threatened ecosystems, government policy, the fossil fuel industries, the growing renewables sector and consumer choices.

Because shutting down your environment desk and your Green blog is what you do when you’re promising aggressive reporting on the topic. This doesn’t even deserve a Green Weenie honorable mention.